private miseries began. He was now prematurely an old man, under sixty
years of age, almost broken down with grief. His beloved daughter
Tullia, with whom his life was bound up, died; and he was divorced from
his wife Terentia,--a proceeding the cause of which remains a mystery.
Neither in his most confidential letters, nor in his conversations with
most intimate friends, does it appear that he ever unbosomed himself,
although he was the frankest and most social of men. In his impressive
silence he has set one of the noblest examples of a man afflicted with
domestic infelicities. He buries his conjugal troubles in eternal
silence; although he is forced to give vent to sorrows, so plaintive and
bitter that both friend and foe were constrained to pity. He expects no
sympathy, even at Rome, for the sundering of conjugal relations, and he
communicates no secrets. In his grief and sadness he does, however, a
most foolish thing: he marries a young lady one-third his age. She
accepted him for his name and rank; he sought her for her beauty, her
youth, and her fortune. This union of May with December was of course a
failure. Both parties were soon disenchanted and disappointed. Neither
party found happiness, only discontent and chagrin. The everlasting
incongruities of such a relation--he sixty and she nineteen--soon led to
another divorce. _He_ expected his young wife to mourn with him the loss
of his daughter Tullia. _She_ expected that her society and charms
would be a compensation for all that he had lost; yea, more, enough to
make him the most fortunate and happy of mortals. In truth, he was too
old a man to have married a young woman whatever were the inducements.
It was the great folly of his life; an illustration of the fact that, as
a general thing, the older a man grows the greater fool he becomes, so
far as women are concerned; a folly that disgraced and humiliated the
two wisest and greatest men who ever sat on the Jewish throne.
In his accumulated sorrows Cicero now plunged for relief into literary
labors. It was thus that his private sorrows were the means which
Providence employed to transmit his precious thoughts and experiences to
future ages, as the most valued inheritance he could bestow on
posterity. What a precious legacy to the mind of the world was the book
of "Ecclesiastes," yet by what bitter experiences was its wisdom earned!
It was in the short period when Caesar rejoiced in the mighty power
which he transmitted to the Roman Emperors that Cicero wrote, in
comparative retirement, his history of "Roman Eloquence," his inquiry as
to the "Greatest Good and Evil," his "Cato," his "Orator," his "Nature
of the Gods," and his treatises on "Glory," on "Fate," on "Friendship,"
on "Old Age," and his grandest work of all, the "Offices."--the best
manual in ethics which has come down to us from heathen antiquity. In
his studious retirement he reminds us of Bacon after his fall, when on
his estate, surrounded with friends, and in the enjoyment of elegant
leisure, he penned the most valued of his immortal compositions. And in
those degenerate days at Rome, when liberty was crushed under foot
forever, it is beautiful to see the greatest of Roman statesmen and
lawyers consoling himself and instructing posterity by his exhaustive
treatises on the fundamental principles of law, of morality, and of
philosophy.
The assassination of Caesar by Roman senators, which Cicero seems to
have foreseen, and in which he rejoiced, at this time shocked and
disturbed the world. For nearly two thousand years the verdict of the
civilized world respecting this great conqueror has been unanimous. But
Mr. Froude has attempted to reverse this verdict, as he has in reference
to Henry VIII., and as Carlyle--another idolater of force--has attempted
in the cases of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick II. This remarkable
word-painter, in his Life of Caesar,--which is, however, interesting
from first to last, as everything he writes is interesting,--has
presented him as an object of unbounded admiration, as I have already
noticed in my lecture on Caesar. Whether in his eagerness to say
something new, or from an ill-concealed hostility to aristocratic and
religious institutions, or from an admiration of imperialism, or disdain
of the people in their efforts at self-government, this able special
pleader seems to hail the Roman conqueror as a benefactor to the cause
of civilization. But imperialism crushed all alike,--the people, no
longer able to send their best men to the Senate through the higher
offices perchance to represent their interests, and the nobles, shorn of
the administration of the Empire. Soldiers, not civilians, henceforth
were to rule the world,--a dreary thought to a great lawyer like Cicero,
or a landed proprietor like Brutus. Even if such a terrible revolution
as occurred in Rome under Caesar may have been ordered wisely by a
Superintending Power for those degenerate times, and as a preservation
of the peace of the world, that Christianity might take root and spread
in countries where all religions were dead,--still, the prostration of
what was dearest to the hearts of all true citizens by the sword was a
crime; and men are not to be commended for crime, even if those crimes
may be palliated. "It must need be that offences come, but woe to those
by whom they come."
Cicero was now sixty-three, prematurely old, discouraged, and
heart-broken. And yet he braced himself up for one more grand
effort,--for a life and death struggle with Antony, one of the ablest
of Caesar's generals; a demagogue, eloquent and popular, but
outrageously cruel and unscrupulous, and with unbridled passions. Had it
not been for his infatuated love of Cleopatra, he probably would have
succeeded to the imperial sceptre, for it was by the sword that he too
sought to suppress the liberties of the Senate and people. Against him,
as the enemy of his country, Cicero did not scruple to launch forth the
most terrible of his invectives. In thirteen immortal philippics--some
of which, however, were merely written and never delivered, after the
fashion of Demosthenes, with whom as an orator and a patriot he can
alone be compared--he denounced the unprincipled demagogue and general
with every offensive epithet the language afforded,--unveiling his
designs, exposing his forgeries, and proving his crimes. Nobler
eloquence was never uttered, and wasted, than that with which Cicero
pursued, in passionate vengeance, the most powerful and the most
unscrupulous man in the Roman Empire. And Cicero must have anticipated
the fate which impended over him if Antony were not decreed a public
enemy. But the protests of the orator were in vain. He lived to utter
them, as a witness of truth; and nothing was left to him but to die.
Of course Antony, when he became Triumvir,--when he made a bargain that
he never meant to keep with Octavius and Lepidus for a division of the
Empire between them,--would not spare such an enemy as Cicero. The
broken-hearted patriot fled mechanically, with a vacillating mind, when
his proscription became known to him,--now more ready to die than live,
since all hope in his country's liberties was utterly crushed. Perhaps
he might have escaped to some remote corner of the Empire. But he did
not wish for life, any more than did Socrates when summoned before his
judges. Desponding, uncertain, pursued, he met his fate with the heroism
of an ancient philosopher. He surrendered his wearied and exhausted body
to the hand of the executioner, and his lofty soul to the keeping of
that personal and supreme God in whom he believed as firmly as any man,
perhaps, of Pagan antiquity. And surely of him, more than of any other
Roman, could it be said,--as Sir Walter Scott said of Pitt, and as
Gladstone quoted, and applied to Sir Robert Peel,--
"Now is the stately column broke,
The _beacon light_ is quenched in smoke;
The trumpet's silver voice is still,
The warder silent on the hill."
With the death--so sad--of the most illustrious of the Romans whose fame
was not earned on the battlefield, I should perhaps close my lecture.
Yet it would be incomplete without a short notice of those services
which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
and to future ages and nations.
In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
politicians.
As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
Edward Everett in his happiest efforts. He was vehement in gesture, like
Brougham and Mirabeau. He was intensely earnest and impressive, like
Savonarola. He had exceeding tact, and was master of the passions of his
audience. There was an irresistible music in his tones of voice, like
that of St. Bernard when he fanned crusades. He was withering in his
denunciations, like Wendell Phillips, whom in person he somewhat
resembled. He was a fascination like Pericles, and the people could not
long spare him from the excitement he produced. It was their desire to
hear him speak which had no small share in producing his recall from
banishment. They crowded around him as the people did around Chrysostom
in Antioch. He amused like an actor, and instructed like a sage. His
sentences are not short, terse, epigrammatic, and direct, but elaborate
and artificial. Yet with all his arts of eloquence his soul, fired with
great sentiments, rose in its inspired fervor above even the melody of
voice, the rhythm of language, and the vehemence of action. A listener,
who was not a critic, might fancy it was gesture, voice, and language
combined; but, after all, it was the _man_ communicating his soul to
those who hung upon his lips, and securing conviction by his sincerity
and appeals to conscience. He must have had a natural gift for oratory,
aside from his learning and accomplishments and rhetorical arts,--a
talent very rare and approaching to creative genius. But to his natural
gifts--like Luther, or Henry Clay, born an orator--he added marvellous
attainments. He had a most retentive memory. He was versed in the whole
history of the world. He was always ready with apt illustrations, which
gave interest and finish to his discourses. He was the most industrious
and studious man of his age. His attainments were prodigious. He was
master of all the knowledge then known, like Gladstone of our day. He
was not so learned a man as Varro; but Varro's works have perished, as
the great monuments of German scholars are perhaps destined to perish,
for lack of style. Cicero's style embalmed his thoughts and made them
imperishable. No writer is immortal who is not an artist; Cicero was a
consummate artist, and studied the arrangement of sentences, like the
historian Tacitus and the Grecian Thucydides.
But greater than as an artist was he in the loftiness of his mind. He
appealed to what is noblest in the soul. Transcendent eloquence ever
"raises mortals to the skies" and never "pulls angels down." Love of
country, love of home, love of friends, love of nature, love of law,
love of God, is brought out in all his discourses, exalting the noblest
sentiments which move the human soul. He was the first to give to the
Latin language beauty and artistic finish. He added to its richness,
copiousness, and strength; he gave it music. For style alone he would be
valued as one of the immortal classics. All men of culture have admired
it, from Augustine to Bossuet, and acknowledged their obligations to
him. We accord to the great poets the formation of languages,--Homer,
Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare; but I doubt if either Virgil or Horace
contributed to the formation of the Latin language more than Cicero.
Certainly they have not been more studied and admired. In every
succeeding age the Orations of Cicero have been one of the first books
which have been used as textbooks in colleges. Is it not something to
have been one of the acknowledged masters of human composition? What a
great service did Cicero render to the education of the Teutonic races!
Whatever the Latin language has done for the modern world, Cicero comes
in for a large share of the glory. More is preserved of his writings
than of any other writer of antiquity.
But not for style alone--seen equally in his essays and in his
orations--is he admirable. His most enduring claim on the gratitude of
the world is the noble tribute he rendered to those truths which save
the world. His testimony, considering he was a pagan, is remarkable in
reference to what is sound in philosophy and morals. His learning, too,
is seen to most advantage in his ethical and philosophical writings. It
is true he did not originate, like Socrates and Plato; but he condensed
and sifted the writings of the Greeks, and is the best expounder of
their philosophy. Who has added substantially to what the Greeks worked
out of their creative brain? I know that no Roman ever added to the
domain of speculative thought, yet what Roman ever showed such a
comprehension and appreciation of Greek philosophy as did Cicero? He was
profoundly versed in all the learning the Grecians ever taught. Like
Socrates, he had a contempt for physical science, because science in his
day was based on imperfect inductions. There were not facts enough known
of the material world to construct sound theories. Physical science at
that time was the most uncertain of all knowledge, although there were
great pretenders then, as now, who maintained it was the only certainty.
But the speculations of scientists disgusted him, for he saw nothing in
them upon which to base incontrovertible truth. They were mere dreams
and baseless theories on the origin of the universe. They were even
puerile; and they were then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They
mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and
Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an
immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But
Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential
interference,--in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing.
He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He
repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the
principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder and
more enlightened than Paley. He did not seek to overturn the popular
religion, like Grecian Sophists, only (like Socrates) to overturn
ignorance, before a sound foundation could be laid for any system of
truth. Nor did he ridicule religion, as Lucian did in after-times, but
soared to comprehend it, like the esoteric priests of Egypt in the time
of Moses or Pythagoras. He cherished as lofty views of God and his moral
government as any moralist of antiquity. And all these lofty views he
taught in matchless language,--principles of government, principles of
law, of ethics, of theology, giving consolation not only to the men of
his day, but to Christian sages in after-times. And there is nothing
puerile or dreamy or demoralizing in his teachings; they all are
luminous for learning as well as genius. He rivalled Bacon in the
variety and profundity of his attainments. He gloried in the certitudes
which consciousness reveals, as well as in the facts which experience
and history demonstrate. With these he consoled himself in trouble; on
these he reposed in the hour of danger. Like Pascal he meditated on the
highest truths which task the intellect of man, but, unlike him, did not
disdain those weapons which _reason_ forged, and which no one used more
triumphantly than Pascal himself. And these great meditations he
transmitted for all ages to ponder, as among the most precious of the
legacies of antiquity.
Thus did he live, a shining light in a corrupt and godless age, in spite
of all the faults which modern critics have enlarged upon in their
ambitious desire for novelties, or in their thoughtless or malignant
desire? to show up human frailties. He was a patriot, taking the side of
his country's highest interests; a statesman, seeking to conserve the
wisdom of his ancestors; an orator, exposing vices and defending the
innocent; a philosopher, unfolding the wisdom of the Greeks; a moralist,
laying down the principles of immutable justice; a sage, pondering the
mysteries of life; ever active, studious, dignified; the charm and
fascination of cultivated circles; as courteous and polished as the
ornaments of modern society; revered by friends, feared by enemies,
adored by all good people; a kind father, an indulgent husband, a
generous friend; hospitable, witty, magnificent,--a most accomplished
gentleman, one of the best men of all antiquity. What if he was vain and
egotistical and vacillating, and occasionally weak? Can you expect
perfection in him who "is born of a woman"? We palliate the backslidings
of Christians; we excuse the crimes of a Constantine, a Theodosius, a
Cromwell: shall we have no toleration for the frailties of a Pagan, in
one of the worst periods of history? I have no patience with those
critics who would hurl him from the pedestal on which he has stood for
two thousand years. Contrast him with other illustrious men. How few
Romans or Greeks were better than he! How few have rendered such exalted
services! And even if he has not perpetuated a faultless character, he
has yet bequeathed a noble example; and, more, has transmitted a legacy
in the richness of which we forget the faults of the testator,--a legacy
of imperishable thought, clothed in the language of imperishable art,--a
legacy so valuable that it is the treasured inheritance of all civilized
nations, and one which no nation can afford to lose.
* * * * *
AUTHORITIES.
Plutarch's Life of Cicero, Appian, Dion Cassius, Villeius Paterculus,
are the original authorities,--next to the writings of Cicero himself,
especially his Letters and Orations. Middleton's Life is full, but
one-sided. Forsyth takes the opposite side in his Life. The last work in
English is that of Anthony Trollope. In Smith's Biographical Dictionary
is an able article. Dr. Vaughan has written an interesting lecture.
Merivale has elaborately treated this great man in his valuable History
of the Romans. Colley Cibber's Character and Conduct of Cicero,
Drumann's Roman History, Rollin's Ancient History, Biographic
Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
nearly the same view as Forsyth.
CLEOPATRA.
69-30 B.C.
THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.
It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon
the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ,--about a
century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt
when quite young,--the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly
three hundred years. The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's
generals, reigned in great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the
commercial centre of the world, whose ships whitened the
Mediterranean,--that great inland lake, as it were, in the centre of the
Roman Empire, around whose shores were countless cities and villas and
works of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries and
museums, of temples and of palaces, as well as a mart of commerce. Its
famous library was the largest in the world, and was the pride of the
age and of the empire. Learned men from all countries came to this
capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It was virtually a
Grecian city, and the language of the leading people was Greek. It was
rivalled in provincial magnificence only by Antioch, the seat of the old
Syrian civilization, also a Greek capital, so far as the governing
classes could make it one. Greece, politically ruined, still sent forth
those influences which made her civilization potent in every land.